Contact: Melissa Reifert
November 9, 2007

First Professional Leadership Academy Proves a Success

Almost a year ago, Robert England and Doug Cooley discussed a shared vision to deal with current issues in the criminal justice profession. “It seems like a lot of recent issues might have been because the professional involved was not trained to be a leader,” says England, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Mountain Empire Community College. For those reasons, he and Cooley developed the idea of a Professional Leadership Academy.

The academy is a partnership between MECC and the Southwest Virginia Criminal Justice Training Academy in Bristol, of which Cooley is the Director. This leadership training is a 16-credit, cohort-based program that feeds into the corrections management and supervision and law enforcement management and supervision certificate programs at MECC. The training program’s duration is six months with most classes held on the college’s campus.

Program topics address how to become a better leader with participants asked to complete 120 hours of training, including a leadership project, before graduating from the Leadership Academy with their certificate. The first cohort was composed of 16 students, eight from regional jail facilities and eight from local law enforcement. All were in positions of management, such as chief of police or law enforcement administrator.

“There are programs similar to the Professional Leadership Academy around the state and around the country,” says Cooley. “We were missing that type of leadership training in southwest Virginia. We are not anymore. What we’ve done here is comparable to what is going on elsewhere. We have the opportunity now through this program to develop good law enforcement and jail officers by developing leadership first.”

According to England, who has been involved in the criminal justice system his entire professional career, the initial cohort was an astounding success. It received high evaluations and positive feedback from nearly all participants. “On a scale from one to ten, most students marked 10+ in that they would recommend the program to others,” he states. “Doug and I were uncertain about the success of the program in the beginning.”

Cooley credits much of that success to England’s wealth of experience in the area of criminal justice. “We couldn’t have made this happen without someone of Robert’s skill level and knowledge level to take it, and run with it. We needed someone with his background to teach the leadership training in a way that’s effective.”

The second cohort will begin in March, and is already full. “It has become a popular thing,” says England. “It is really a hot commodity at the Justice Training Academy, and the good thing is that the program is meeting the needs there and enrollment needs here at MECC. The college is getting classes, FTEs, and enrollment because of it. Some students who had not finished their degrees, but gained credits through the program, are thinking about coming back to MECC in the spring to finish.

England states that the most important aspect of the Professional Leadership Academy is the fact that the training is developing leaders further. “Good, quality leaders are graduating from the program.” Cooley agrees, “This is a step in the right direction to improving the professionalism of all of our criminal justice officers.”

For more information about the Professional Leadership Academy, contact England at (276) 523-2400, extension 327 or rengland@me.vccs.edu.

Sixteen students, including eight from regional jail facilities and eight from local law enforcement, graduated from the first cohort of the Professional Leadership Academy. The academy is a partnership between Mountain Empire Community College and the Southwest Virginia Criminal Justice Training Academy in Bristol.

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